Natural Bridge Zoo owners can have animals in future, judge says; cost of care for seized animals yet to be determined

Karl and Debbie Mogensen will be permitted to own animals in Virginia, a judge ruled Monday, just not any of the 71 that were seized from the owners of Natural Bridge Zoo on animal neglect and abuse charges last winter.

Rockbridge County Circuit Judge Christopher Russell handed down several rulings in Monday’s post-trial hearing, including the Mogensens’ animal-ownership rights and a $200,000 appeal bond should the couple ask for another court to look at a March jury trial that awarded 71 of the 100 animals seized from the zoo to the county’s custody. The other 29 animals were returned to the Mogensens.

The judge took little time to determine the Mogensens’ ability to own animals in the future, after confirming that neither had a prior record.

Other facets were less simple. Russell said the court needed more time to determine which costs of care for the seized animals the Mogensens should be responsible for, as well as to figure out how to manage the situation of four giraffes that have been kept at the Natural Bridge Zoo and cared for by its staff since their Dec. 7 seizure. It came out in court Monday that at least two of the animals are pregnant. The judge ordered that the giraffes were not to be given further opportunity to breed until the matter was settled, and he set another hearing for Oct. 2.

Meanwhile, the Mogensens have filed a suit in Rockbridge County Circuit Court against the Virginia State Police, arguing that law enforcement violated the couple’s Fourth Amendment rights during and after the December raid. The suit alleges that officials seized privileged materials “outside the scope of the warrant” it was executing at the time, concealed veterinary records for seized animals, and tampered with witnesses in the jury trial that took place in February and March. The court held a preliminary hearing in that case Aug. 9, but a transcript from that hearing was not yet available in court documents Monday. No future hearings in that case appear on the court’s online docket.

Monday’s proceedings began where they left off at an April 4 post-trial hearing, with Russell hearing arguments from Mogensen attorneys Erin Harrigan and Aaron Cook on their motion to set aside the jury’s verdict. The attorneys argued that Gretchen Mogensen, Karl’s daughter and the zoo’s manager, was erroneously omitted from the trial’s witness list, resulting in her testimony being disallowed at trial. Russell, who reviewed the transcript of Gretchen Mogensen’s intended testimony, denied the motion.

“Her name was not on the list,” Russell said. “The county had a right to go through this trial with the understanding that she was not going to be called. … That was my ruling at trial, and I’m not inclined to change it.”

The majority of Monday’s hearing concerned the cost of care for the seized animals. Senior assistant attorney general Michelle Welch, who leads Virginia’s Animal Law Unit and tried the case for the county, said her office had spent more than $535,000 on care for the animals and was seeking $377,313.79 of that back from the Mogensens. Harrigan argued that authorities were asking for much more than just the cost of care from her clients, citing line items from some of the commonwealth’s rescue partners that included the cost of building enclosures and after-the-fact veterinary care that she said had nothing to do with her clients’ care of the animals. She proposed a sum of around $56,000.

“We’re really talking about what these facilities would charge to house an animal temporarily,” Harrigan said. She used the example of a miniature donkey seized from the zoo. The county asked for more than $9,600 to cover the cost of care for that animal — more, Harrigan argued, than one would pay a private facility to board a thoroughbred racehorse.

“There are facilities that could have housed these animals [at a more reasonable cost],” Harrigan argued, “and the county just chose not to use them.”

Russell said that the correct amount was likely somewhere in the middle, noting the need for more time to make that determination.

The newfound pregnancy of at least two of the three female giraffes acquired in the seizure also precipitated the need for more discussion at a later date. A veterinarian’s recent examination of the animals determined that at least two, and potentially all three, of the females were carrying fetuses, and the sides disagreed on who would own the giraffes-to-be.

The ruminants have exceptionally long gestation periods, and determining the state of a giraffe’s pregnancy is much harder than with humans, Harrigan said. Russell allowed that the animals could have been pregnant without anyone’s knowledge at the time of the December raid. He said that the seized animals should be moved from the zoo soon, but he ordered that the sides agree on a veterinarian to examine the giraffes in the monthlong window before the next scheduled hearing to determine whether it was safe to move them while pregnant.

Welch said the county had a new home lined up for the giraffes and was ready to move them as soon as safely possible.

The rulings weren’t the only news to come out of Monday’s hearing. In her argument, Harrigan mentioned the pending transfer of Natural Bridge Zoo, registered as a limited liability company in Virginia, from Karl and Debbie Mogensen to Gretchen Mogensen and her two brothers. The prospective owners are going through the transfer process with both federal and state regulators, Harrigan said, and the change in ownership should be complete within the next two weeks.

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